Danielle’s story

The BeyondAutism Outreach & Training Team were engaged by a primary school in an East London borough, to support them in evolving the education offering for their SEN pupils. The team went to the school for a week of intervention and training, supporting the school in a number of ways from a whole school twilight training session to tailoring and restructuring the curriculum and timetables of their SEND classroom.

One of the SENCOs involved in the week-long training has altered some of the strategies she uses based on the intervention of BeyondAutism, and has seen the class transform into a much more calm and focussed room of children, where they are able to focus more on the specific needs of each child, and set both short and long-term goals.

We spoke with Danielle, the lead SEND teacher to find out what she thought of the training and what impact this has had on the school.

Danielle said: “I think this approach [ABA] is good… I use what I can of it and put it into a mainstream setting and it works… they’re like different children, I had no structure in my room before but the team implemented simple things, that made easy sense, and now they sit at a table for 20 minutes 1:1 with an adult… and that’s a huge difference.”

What impact has this made on the school? Danielle’s response is to invite anyone in to see for themselves. Since the training the school welcomed an Ofsted inspector for an unofficial visit to see the changes to the class, and the room has been informally rated outstanding.

Danielle is incredibly motivated by her new role as a SEND teacher, and the training given so far. To further her professional development, she has enrolled and completed our ‘Introduction to ABA’ and ‘Developing Effective Teaching Skills’ courses – all paid for by the school. “My head teacher is very good like that, he’s encouraging all the training… they know it’s needed for the role”

So what would Danielle say to other boroughs and schools considering whether to implement our outreach and training services? Go visit BeyondAutism Schools as a first step. “Go in and observe and get a feel of it… it didn’t cost my school anything for me to go in. There’s many ways you can teach children with autism and every child learns differently.”